A woman is sleeping. Her hand is near a skull. 9 swords are above her. One sword is on the ground, near her and the skull. From the angle, we can see a tower of a castle an a part of another one. Hitting a low point. Nothing can’t go worst than that.

I wrote a few notes about this card from a reading I did tonight. It was the card representing where I am presently, concerning a relationship:

"at a low point right now. Being kept back from getting to my "castle" by all those swords. Depressed and just want to sleep. The skull feels like a 'death' of something. Maybe I myself am the one keeping myself from the castle (my goal) by negative thoughts and worries (the ominous swords)."

I discovered an odd thing about this card recently when I bought a copy of Marion Crawford's "Witch of Prague". It's a very over the top example of late Victorian Gothic writing, all centred around a very beautiful, but frighteningly powerful, young witch. Not a terribly well-written book, but one of those "must reads" from the Prague point of view.

One interesting thing about this book is that the author is very specific about descriptions of places (she gives a lot of real street names), and the witch's home seems to be the house from which we took the image of the girl sleeping on the skull. It made me think again that this girl is a strange contradiction - is she innocent or guilty? I've always wondered if she is a simple child or someone who has actually killed the person whose skull her head is almost pillowed on. The image fits very well with the story in the book - the witch is murderous but capable of great love. She turns out also to be a bit childlike, and does have a major change of heart at one point which turns her from tormentor to victim. Perhaps that's why Marion Crawford set it in that house?

I like this image because it's so much less emphatic than the RWS one (the RWS Ten of Swords is not one of my favourites from that deck - always seems slightly silly to me). Everything is in question. Who and what is the girl? Why the skull, what does it mean? Will the swords fall? I almost imagine that the church bells in the tower behind her will suddenly ring out, and everything will change. I like the feeling of capturing a split second.

I hate to say it, but there is a small touch of "Kill Bill" somewhere in this card (not that the film was out when we did the deck of course LOL)

Reading your post baba I think about the movie "The Bad Seed". Which was about a cute little girl who was also very murderous....and ultimately it is her mother who kills her.

There was a more recent remake of it with McCauley Culkin I think is his name, and it was a few years ago anyway. In this one it is two little boys and one is bad, bad, bad. Bad to the bone as they say.

I sort of always took the Prague 10 of Swords to mean that we sleep with Death/darkness/the unthinkable/unknowable/shadow side as a potential companion and reality all the time. We are capable of much, and until pressed we don't know just how much.

So tho we are 'civilised' and as sweet as lambs there is with in us a potential or an energy that if activated can be devastating. Such that we can wreak havoc or we can recieve the havoc...and either way become a sort of victim.

this card shows me most of the time a result of what you have sown. i see this woman embracing her own 'grave' of thoughts and delusions without noticing that the swords (thoughts) do not touch her if she doesn't pay attention to them . ...know what i mean?

This card to me is the ultimate rest card. You are at the absolute lowest you can go, so now is the time to rest. But you can't stay that way forever, because you still have all those swords hanging there, and you have to deal with them sooner or later.

She's dreaming and we can see her dream, which is actually a nightmare. But she sleeps like a baby without a trace of anxiety. Then again, she's made of stone. To me this feels like resolve. She's been through the mill, learned her lessons and now she can sleep. The sword by her side might represent a compromise, or a decision she can live with.

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